Ukraine has threatened Russia with retaliation after a viral video surfaced of a captured soldier apparently being shot multiple times for using a pro-Ukrainian slogan. This incident occurred on Tuesday in Kyiv.
The captured Ukrainian soldier can be seen standing in a shallow trench, smoking a cigarette, and then being shot to death with multiple automatic weapons after proclaiming “Glory to Ukraine.”
Kyiv officials have pointed the finger at Russia and asked the International Criminal Court to look into the incident.
The video has gone viral in Ukraine, and the apparent victim’s last words have become a trending topic as the country celebrates its military.
A photo of the dead man was widely shared on social media by Ukrainians and others who back Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s invasion.
Initial findings led the Ukrainian military to identify the deceased as Tymofiy Mykolayovych Shadura, a member of the 30th separate mechanized brigade.
The military added that the return of Shadura’s remains would confirm his identity. Shadura went missing on February 3 due to fighting in the area of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
When our hero is killed, there will be retaliation, it said.
According to Anatoliy Yavorsky, a spokesman for the brigade, Shadura was born in 1982 and grew up in the Zhytomyr region to the west of Kyiv. When December rolled around, he was called up for active duty.
His alleged remains are still in Russian-occupied territory, according to Kyiv.
However, Oleksandr Matsiyevsky, 42, of the northern Ukrainian city of Nizhyn was positively identified by Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov.
Butusov shared a photo of Matsiyevsky, who looked a lot like the Ukrainian soldier in the viral video.
Renowned journalist said Matsiyevsky, who was a father to a son of 19 years old, volunteered to go to the front. Last month, he was laid to rest in Nizhyn, he said.
Neither the footage’s origins nor whether or not it actually depicted a Ukrainian serviceman could be verified by AFP’s own investigation.
Despite leading Russia’s assault on Bakhmut, the Wagner mercenary group’s leader denied his troops were responsible for the murders.
Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, on the other hand, promised that “we will certainly look into it in detail” if evidence implicating his organization became available.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the nation on Monday, claiming that the video evidenced Russian forces “brutally killing” a Ukrainian serviceman.
Those responsible for the murders would be tracked down, he promised.
Dmytro Kuleba, the country’s foreign minister, has requested that the International Criminal Court look into the video.
The International Criminal Court in Hague did not immediately comment.
Killing prisoners of war is a “grave breach of the Geneva Convention,” according to Marta Bo, an expert in international criminal and humanitarian law at The Hague’s Asser Institute.
She emphasized that states have a responsibility to look into and prosecute violations of international humanitarian law.
In the year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both Moscow and Kyiv have been accused by the other of killing detainees.
On Tuesday, the State Department announced that it was aware of the “harrowing” video showing the execution of an unarmed Ukrainian soldier in Ukraine and that Russia should be ashamed for breaking basic rules of war.
While this is not the first evidence of apparent atrocities committed by Russian forces, State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a regular press briefing that the United States was “not naive” to believe that Russia would admit to the killing.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military claimed to have found the body of a soldier who had been shot dead by “Russian invaders” in a video that had gone viral online, and they hailed the man as a hero whose death would be avenged.
